TB activism – How is it different from HIV activism?

It’s yet another World Aids Day. UNAIDS Executive Director, Michael Sidibe’s message for World AIDS Day 2012 is reproduced below.

To the millions who have come together with compassion and determination on this World AIDS Day, we say: “Your blood, sweat and tears are changing the world.” We have moved from despair to hope. Far fewer people are dying from AIDS.
25 countries have reduced new infections by more than 50%. I want these results in every country. The pace of progress is quickening. It is unprecedented—what used to take a decade is now being achieved in just 24 months. Now that we know rapid and massive scale up of HIV programmes is possible, we need to do more. Friends, we only have a thousand days left before the deadline of the 2015 global AIDS targets. So today, on World AIDS Day, let us renew our commitment to getting to zero. Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths

Very encouraging indeed. But how much of this progress has been achieved due to activism? Can we say the same about TB? How is TB activism different from HIV activism? Listen to what the activists themselves have to say. JATB spoke to Carol Nyirenda, International Health Advocate and Executive Director for the Community Initiative for Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CITAM+) in Zambia, and Mark Harrington, co-founder and policy director of the Treatment Action Group, on the sidelines of the 43rd Union World Conference on Lung Health held at Kuala Lumpur in November.